White Supremacist Faces 16 Months in Prison for Threatening Jewish Journalist
LOCKED UP
Tom Brenner/Reuters
A member of a white supremacist and neo-Nazi group has been sentenced for taking part in a plan to “threaten and intimidate journalists and advocates who worked to expose anti-Semitism,” the Department of Justice said in a press release Wednesday. Twenty-one-year-old Johnny Roman Garza plotted the attack with other members of Atomwaffen Division. The Daily Beast previously reported on the group when five members, including Garza and the group’s alleged leader, John Cameron Denton, were all arrested earlier this year.
Garza is facing 16 months in jail and another three years of supervised release. Garza admitted in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington that he tracked down journalists and advocates who reported on anti-Semitism and were Jewish or people of color. Garza put a poster on the bedroom window of a prominent Jewish reporter that had a picture of someone in a skull mask holding a Molotov cocktail. The poster said, “Your actions have consequences. Our patience has its limits... You have been visited by your local Nazis.”
In the statement the DOJ released Wednesday, Assistant Attorney General Eric Dreiband of the Civil Rights Division said, “Threats motivated by religious intolerance are unacceptable, and so too are threats aimed at those who work to end such discrimination. The Justice Department will continue the fight against neo-Nazi-related threats and violence and is committed fully to investigating and prosecuting anyone who commits hate crimes.”